Dear OFS Community,
Assembly Messages
This half of term we are looking at positive and exciting changes that will be taking place in our lives over the coming years – physically, mentally and emotionally. This feels remarkably topical as I embrace life in my 50’s and it’s interesting how we all view ‘age’ and the passing of time – I do wish that I had had assembly themes like this when I was at school to embed reflection and self-awareness into my life.
If I could go back to my school-aged self, I would certainly be telling myself to make the most of sport, dance and movement, especially knowing how sedentary modern life is becoming. The joy of ‘flexibility’ and extending this to both body and mind as we look to the wealth of opportunities that lie ahead in the unknown.
I certainly enjoyed dropping into the many Year Group Assemblies this week and I want to thank the Year Group Leads who are tailoring messages to age groups that can then be unpacked in the coming weekly PSHE lessons – seeds are being planted in rich and fertile soil!
Exam Feedback
This is always one of the most important weeks in our calendar as teachers have spent the half term break marking exam scripts and collating data that goes directly to pupils through targets and feedback. Mrs Harrison tied this up beautifully today as she reflected on one of our key school values…
Do your best to be your best!
…Mrs Harrison invited everyone receiving their feedback to really focus on themselves – it’s easy to be distracted comparing with others but the bottom line is that success is being better than you were yesterday!
Welcome Back!
We hosted our first Orlumni event as our leavers from last year returned for an informal evening to share stories and catch up. It was also an opportunity for them to open our new Hub – one comment being:
It’s unfair, why wasn’t this here last year…
One lovely outcome is that many leavers have offered to return to run sports experiences, assemblies telling their stories and to offer mentoring to current pupils. Often these are easy words but Arushi followed up this week by running a Lacrosse taster session and I have a feeling that we might be building more experiences in the near future!
Pilgrim Piano Competition
We were treated to a simply beautiful afternoon of music – there were beginners as well as more experienced performers and we were lucky to have Mr Stone from the Royal Academy of Music to adjudicate. I loved the variety of pieces and the individual performances. As we return to live music, it’s interesting seeing the way that some pupils embrace the moment and enjoy every part of sharing their experience – as I say, it was simple joy to be immersed for a few hours without an interruption! Well done to everyone for entertaining us on a perfect afternoon!
Careers Day
On Wednesday we were fortunate to have wise visitors sharing their stories and journeys to their current professions. Our Yr 6&8 leavers were on a carousel that allowed them to hear from all 8 visitors and to have the opportunity to ask questions.
We had a professional climber hoping to represent Team GB at the coming Olympics (a former Orleyan!), a professional rugby player who plays for Wales, Police Officers from Harrow, a financial planner, an expert in business transformation and educators and researchers from Orley and Harrow.
Thank you so much to our visitors, conversations are still buzzing and the greatest outcome was not hearing a word about ‘salary’!!! I feel that there’s a healthy shift in young people as they are valuing a sense of purpose and enjoyment rather than what do I get out of this?
Everyone talked about staying open minded to opportunities and some even mentioned luck playing a part in their choices.
One person said that they’re still not sure what they want to do, even though they’re in a job!
A lot of visitors said that it was important to really like and enjoy what you end up doing for a job.
Ridiculous Day
Another cracking day inspired and organised by our Yr5 Edge, Fund-Raising Team.
A rolling stone gathers no moss…
Orley Farm has never been a place that invites moss to grow as it’s such a busy, innovative and creative place and I love coming to school on days like this as they invite engagement, colour, a sense of fun and reminder of how lucky we are. I do hope that St Mulumba have days like this and the best part is that we adding value to another school through these events!
House Debate
The House says that ‘Every child between the ages of 9 -17 should have access to a device in school’. Pupils from our 4 Houses took part in the semi-finals of the House Debate, a fiercely fought competition that saw extraordinary exchanges as speakers took their stances and then had to display flexibility, focus, creativity…
…they had to embrace every one of the 10 Orley Farm Thinking Skills in order to survive!
Well done to Julians and Hastings who will be meeting in the final later this term, I can’t wait to see the outcome when the dust settles from that one!
A huge thank you to Miss Welsh for bringing this back into our calendar and to our judges who had an impossible task!
A highlight in my week…Fadi came in this morning on ‘Ridiculous Day’…dressed as who…none other than me! I get the suit but when I asked about the hair, the shades and the necklace…he said…
Mr Calvey, this is you if you were a hippy!
Today Mrs Harrison led our Celebration Assembly – a fun one considering that it’s Ridiculous Day! She listed the events that have happened since Monday and I was staggered, what I’ve summarised above is only a fraction. This was summed up perfectly for me as Nayan Shah ran into the Pilgrim Piano competition breathless and in his cricket kit – the match hadn’t finished but he wanted and needed to be in two places…so he was!
Tim Calvey